Belgium

Bazart “Echo”

Bazart is the most successful Belgian band of 2016. They kept on filling always bigger venues at a record speed. In August they played in a packed Marquee, which is the second biggest stage at Pukkelpop.

The album maybe came a bit too soon, containing all the brilliant singles, but also too many filler songs.

Eriksson Delcroix “Heart Out Of Its Mind”

Americana is not the most popular music in Belgium, but Bjorn Eriksson gained massive popularity as a member of The Broken Circle Bluegrass Band, that figured in the Oscar nominated movie “The Broken Circle Breakdown”. Nathalie Delcroix used to be a member of the popular folk outfit Laïs.

Robbing Millions “Robbing Millions”

Poppy, funny, experimental, happy, colourful, 80s, 10s.

Robbing Millions is one of the bands that prove that the music scene from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles keeps on getting better and continues to decrease the quality gap with the much more subsidised rock scene from Flanders.

Marble Sounds “Tautou”

Marble Sounds’ most recent album “Tautou” did not include a hit single, but was a worthy successor for “Dear Me, Look Up” (2013). It yielded the band a headlining spot on the Wablief stage at Pukkelpop, which focusses on Belgian bands.

Marble Sounds does not release albums at a high pace, but the ones they make are always very good.

Dans Dans “Sand”

Dans Dans is one of those bands whose music you can describe in several ways, but that cannot be covered by one specific flag. It’s instrumental, it’s jazzy, and it’s full of changes and moodswings.

I do like it a lot, and so do many other people. This is definitely no mainstream music. And still… “Sand” is their biggest commercial success so far, charting at number 23, which is extremely unusual for such an experimental album.